My idea on this is going to be very skewed because of one thing - I live in a suburb of Chicago.
I'm wondering why you think your thoughts are very skewed on this? (maybe the proximity to the firehouse skews things a bit?)
I, too, am in a suburb of Chicago. I'm about 3-4 blocks away from the police/fire station.
Response time has always been within the 5-minute range for emergencies.
And I've had to call them quite a few times. For some reason the corner on my street is accident prone. (2-way stop, someone blows the stop sign, big mess:

) emergency responders are always Johnny-on-the spot.
Along with several medical emergencies when LDH was sick.
Then there were the times for police emergencies. I heard a neighbor and her BF screaming at each other late at night . . . BF yelling "I'm going to kill you!" I called 911. 3 squad cars were there in a flash.
There was the time that someone broke into our cars, I called 911 . . . not a true emergency but I was thanked for calling it in because they received several other calls and they were able to track the thief's movement. Police showed up at my door less than 5 minutes after the call, one team dusted my car for prints and took my report while the other squads roamed the neighborhood. Less than a 1/2 hour later I was told that they caught the guy.
So, yeah. I feel pretty darn safe and secure . . . maybe that's why my taxes are so high?